Medical treatment of the breast, such as radiation treatment, can be effective in treating cancers and other ailments. For such treatment to be most effective, the treatment must be targeted at the affected tissue in such a way that damage to surrounding tissue is minimized. Such targeting is more difficult on patients who have large or pendulous breasts. One common side-effect of radiation treatment of the breast is irritation to the skin in the area surrounding the affected tissue. Such treatment can also result in an increased dose of treatment to the lungs. Additionally, in some cases such treatment, when applied to the left breast, may need to be reduced to prevent the dose affecting the heart, and as a result an insufficient dose is applied.
In order to allow for proper treatment of a large or pendulous breast, it is often necessary to provide support to the breast to bring the breast to a more bulbous shape. One way to form the breast to a bulbous shape is to treat the patient in a prone position (such as lying face-down). The downside of treating patients in the prone position is that many patients who require such treatment are unable to maneuver themselves onto a table and into the prone position due to their increased age or other physical limitations. Another way to form the breast to a bulbous shape is to use an external support device to shape the breast into an ideal shape. In many cases, such prior art external support devices are generally crude homemade instruments constructed from objects on hand in the treating office, such as plastic film, or tape.
Any external support device used during such treatments needs to be able to return the breast to a repeatable shape during each of successive treatments. As such, the prior art “homemade” solutions are inadequate, as they do not lend themselves to consistent and reproducible shaping of the breast. In the common case, a patient will need to receive multiple treatments over a series of visits, and the treatments need to be consistent. As such, the positioning of the patient, and the positioning of the breast needs to be accurately reproducible from visit to visit so as to provide consistent and repeatable dosing to the affected tissue while minimizing dosing to unaffected tissue.
As such, an improved external support device for breasts is needed.